Robert Greenwald’s alternative real movies

Brave New Films and Brave New Theaters find ways to make, distribute, show and use documentaries to stimulate debate and action in politics, economics and international affairs. They aren’t box office and they aren’t meant to be, but they certainly get seen and remembered

par Christian Christensen,
novembre 2007

Much of the credit for the revitalisation of the documentary film, especially political and activist documentaries, has been attributed to the box-office success of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), which took more than $120m in the United States and $200m globally. But it was surrounded by other well-received documentaries, such as The Fog of War (Errol Morris, 2003), The Corporation (Mark Achbar & Jennifer Abbot, 2003), Control Room (Jehane Noujaim, 2004), Super Size Me (Morgan Spurlock, 2004) and An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006). They also did good box office – Super Size Me took $11.5m in the US, which dwarfed its $65,000 production budget.

But just concentrating on the box office and its ratio to production budget excludes one of the more interesting developments in political documentary production, distribution and exhibition : the work of Brave New Films (www.bravenewfilms.org) and Brave New Theaters, founded in 2004 by Robert Greenwald. He is the producer/director of Iraq for Sale : The War Profiteers (2006) ; The Big Buy : Tom Delay’s Stolen Congress (2006) ; Wal-Mart : The High Cost of Low Price (2005) ; Outfoxed : Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2004) ; Unconstitutional : The War on Our Civil Liberties (2004) ; Uncovered : The War on Iraq (2004) ; and Unprecedented : the 2000 Presidential Election (2002).

By conventional standards, his most critically-acclaimed film, Outfoxed, with only 18 screenings and a meagre $460,000 in box office takings, would be considered at best minor ; while Wal-Mart, The Big Buy and Iraq for Sale barely register in US film industry statistics. The reason for their lack of traditional success was not a paucity of viewer interest, but rather that Greenwald founded Brave New Films and Brave New Theaters (a website for coordinating local film screenings) specifically to create a politically-engaged production company and distribution/organisation arm outside the usual system.

His dedication to documentary is surprising given his past as the producer/director of much mainstream Hollywood film and television. Two events influenced his decision to dive into activist media : the aftermath of 11 September 2001 and the re-election of George Bush in 2004. Greenwald told me that the speed with which the national grief and pain after 9/11 became rage and revenge disturbed him : “I have four kids and they affect my decisions a lot, and I felt I could not look myself in the mirror if I didn’t try to do something… I had no idea it would lead to this.”

Brave new films

It led to Brave New Films, a company dedicated to producing instant documentaries addressing key US political issues. Rather than focusing on larger-budget productions spanning several years, Greenwald decided that what was needed were documentaries on hot political topics, shot cheaply (but of high quality), released quickly and linked to activism. There are a number of core ideas behind the venture :

— Partial funding for small-scale documentaries could be obtained from contributions from ordinary people through the internet ;

— High-quality political documentaries could be produced quickly, and on a limited budget, to address crucial social and political issues ;

— The internet could be used for direct sale and distribution of DVDs (bypassing powerful rental and wholesale outlets) ;

— The internet could also be used to coordinate screenings (bypassing powerful film distribution and exhibition gatekeepers) ; and

— Screenings could be combined with alternate sources of information, such as lectures by union organisers or peace activists, plus debates, and coordinated efforts to maintain activities after screenings.

Brave New Films is an umbrella film production company, under which Brave New Theaters operates, and the concept is simple : any company, group or person can register interest in a film or DVD on its website (as of February 2007, 101 films were listed). A link is then put on the webpage (1). He/she/they may volunteer to host a screening, the date and location of which are put on the website. Some venues are as big as university lecture halls, some as small as a private living room in countries round the world. The audience can find a local screening through the website and answer an online RSVP so everybody can gauge the level of interest in the film.

It’s a completely different approach to screenings, meant to break the power of film distribution and exhibition companies. As Jim Miller, a Brave New development director, said, the website is a bridge between producers, screeners and activists. The films are just part of a broader educational and political strategy. Miller said : “It wouldn’t make sense for us to do broader screenings. It’s not something we pursue… a lot of filmmakers… like to go to the festivals screenings and try to get awards. They like to present it theatrically. That’s not why we make the movies. We make the movies so people have a jumping-off point to discuss the subject, to learn more information about it, to make a change.”

The starting point

The films are not the end result of the project, but the starting point for further political debate and action. The organisation coordinates and encourages post-screening action plans, sending information about how audiences can get involved, inviting guest speakers (veterans after Iraq for Sale), and initiating special weeks when audiences around the country can simultaneously listen to Greenwald and others via video and telephone links (2).

The website lists more than 3,200 groups, and over 4,500 people who have hosted at least one screening (3). The Wal-Mart film had 8,000 screenings across North America, and roughly 700,000 people saw it in the US without a major release. Of the 3,200 groups, only 18 have hosted 10 screenings or more. Screening groups defy social categorisation, but you can discern some regulars : grassroots political organisations ; anti-war groups ; human rights groups ; organised labour and unions ; faith-based groups ; and university-based organisations.

Despite the common perception that US religious groups always lean to the political right, there have been successful screenings through collaboration with churches and religious groups, especially for the Wal-Mart movie, as many of the under-paid employees of the chain are church-going members of the Latino community. For the churches, the unfair (and sometimes criminal) treatment of the Wal-Mart workforce was an issue of morality and ethics.

Despite their success, Greenwald and his colleagues are not content with limiting themselves to production and distribution. Brave New Foundation has been created to give people the opportunity to become involved in filmmaking, another example of Greenwald’s determination to democratise media production. The Foundation’s first major project was the Iraq Veterans Memorial (www.iraqmemorial.org), a website unveiled on 19 March, fourth anniversary of the start of the conflict. It features short video dedications by family, friends, co-workers and comrades to soldiers killed in the war.

As global mainstream media output embraces cheap “reality” productions, Greenwald and his colleagues show that low-cost, real reality-based media can do more than just entertain us between advertisements. Greenwald said : “I believe that telling stories in general, whatever the distribution mechanism, and whatever the form, is a very important tool for progressives. I don’t think we will ever get our ideology into the simple or simplistic sound-bites of the right, but I think we have wonderful human stories that affect and move and connect.”